1 Welcome a man of weak faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his scruples.
2 While one man has enough confidence to eat any food, the man of weak faith only eats vegetables.
3 The eater must not look down upon the non-eater, and the non-eater must not criticize the eater, for God has welcomed him.
4 Who are you to criticize the servant of Another? It is for his Master to say whether he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Master has power to make him stand.
5 Then again, this man rates one day above another, while that man rates all days alike. Well, everyone must be convinced in his own mind;
6 the man who values a particular day does so to the Lord. The eater eats to the Lord, since he thanks God for his food; the non-eater abstains to the Lord, and he too thanks God.
7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself;
8 if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. Thus we are the Lord's whether we live or die;
9 it was for this that Christ died and rose and came to life, to be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
10 So why do you criticize your brother? And you, why do you look down upon your brother? All of us have to stand before the tribunal of God ??11 for it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bend before me, every tongue shall offer praise to God.
13 So let us stop criticizing one another; rather make up your mind never to put any stumbling-block or hindrance in your brother's way.
14 I know, I am certain in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is in itself unclean; only, anything is unclean for a man who considers it unclean.
15 If your brother is being injured because you eat a certain food, then you are no longer living by the rule of love. Do not let that food of yours ruin the man for whom Christ died.
16 Your rights must not get a bad name.
17 The Reign of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, it means righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit;
18 he who serves Christ on these lines, is acceptable to God and esteemed by men.
19 Peace, then, and the building up of each other, these are what we must aim at.
20 You must not break down God's work for the mere sake of food! Everything may be clean, but it is wrong for a man to prove a stumbling-block by what he eats;
21 the right course is to abstain from flesh or wine or indeed anything that your brother feels to be a stumbling-block.
22 Certainly keep your own conviction on the matter, as between yourself and God; he is a fortunate man who has no misgivings about what he allows himself to eat.
23 But if anyone has doubts about eating and then eats, that condemns him at once; it was not faith that induced him to eat, and any action that is not based on faith is a sin.